Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerBernard Josefsberg, center, the Leonia Public School Superintendent, meets with Nancy Brophy, a teacher of the ABA program left, and Karen Poretzky, supervisor of special services, as they discuss the district's program for children with autism.

Leonia School District Superintendent Bernard Josefsberg determines spending plans and decides when schools are closed for snow. He translates complex education jargon for parents and visits classrooms to read with elementary students, many of whom he knows by name in a district of about 1,800 students.

In June, Josefsberg is retiring, in part because of a pay cap imposed by Gov. Chris Christie that is set to take effect in February after the current required period of public comment ends.

The cap links a superintendent’s salary to the size of a district, limiting pay for the largest school systems to a maximum $175,000, the governor’s salary.

"The pay cap wasn’t the only factor in my decision, but it didn’t encourage me to stay longer," said the 30-year educator who makes about $190,000 and has spent his last seven years in Leonia. Were Josefsberg to stay, he would have to swallow a salary cut of nearly $35,000.

Josefsberg, 61, is one among a flood of veteran and mid-career superintendents expected to retire or seek new jobs in neighboring states because of a compensation limit they consider arbitrary and unfair, according to the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. Even Mark Raivetz of Haddon Township, the association’s superintendent of the year, has pledged retirement come 2012 when his current contract expires, capping a 40-year career in education. Former state education officials, search firms and a 2008 report predict the pay cap will dilute the caliber of school district leaders. They say the quality of the state’s many high-performing schools will suffer.

New York and Minnesota placed ceilings on superintendents’ salaries in the 1990s but Minnesota lifted it after seven years because their schools chiefs were being poached by other states and they had a hard time finding qualified superintendents to replace them.

Christie insists the cap is necessary and overdue, pledging savings of $9.8 million when salaries of 366 highly paid superintendents are cut after their current contracts expire.

During a keynote address on Nov. 30 to a nonprofit education foundation, Christie described this latest chapter in his battle with New Jersey educators as a "conspiracy among superintendents."

"To be the super of the schools – that’s a hard job [they say] … but I’ll tell you this – it’s no harder than my job, and I make $175,000 a year," Christie said, adding "‘How about this? You don’t make any more than me.’"

When Christie first proposed the cap over the summer, he acknowledged some superintendents may leave because of them. "But if that’s the sole reason they’re here, then goodbye," he said.

This assessment of superintendents’ responsibilities and motivations is ill-informed, said Jim O’Neill, superintendent for the Districts of the Chathams, who plans to retire next year after the salary cap goes into effect. Though a precipitous drop in school district quality is not likely, "those districts will be different places" in four to six years, he said of the state’s high-achieving suburban school systems, many of whom receive relatively little state aid.

"School districts are complex institutions whether the governor likes it or not," O’Neill said. "To reduce all of that to the single metric of enrollment is a callous action that indicates his complete lack of understanding for the dynamics of the position."

Gordon MacInnes, a former assistant education commissioner and Princeton University scholar, said New Jersey relies heavily on its excellent suburban schools to attract new homeowners and their families to the state.

Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerGov. Chris Christie and now-former Education Commissioner Bret Schundler announce their plan to cut the pay of school superintendent during a July press conference held at the E. Raymond Appleby Elementary School in Spotswood.

Though residents in Westfield, Millburn and Ridgewood pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation, those taxes approximate the cost of private school tuition in exchange for access to some of the state’s highest achieving public districts, said MacInnes, a Democrat who also served in the state assembly and senate.

He criticized the governor for not publicizing research that affirms his position about the cap. "If I say these caps will be grievously harmful to New Jersey’s public schools, show me the proof that it won’t be," MacInnes said. "Show me what you can get for $130,000."

A 2008 report by the American Institutes for Research, a non-partisan nonprofit, comparing superintendent salaries in New Jersey to the tri-state area and the country indicates districts can’t get much. The report highlighted the number of baby boomers reaching retirement age, and the shortage of qualified superintendents in the pipeline to replace them.

"If the highest salaries of superintendents in New Jersey had been significantly lower than those in neighboring states, it would have a limiting effect on its ability to attract the most qualified candidates for the superintendent position in these highly paid areas," the report states.

Average superintendent salaries in New York’s Westchester and Nassau counties are $248,087 and $243,754 respectively. In Connecticut’s Fairfield County it’s $195,585 and in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, the average is $160,400.

The report also notes that while compensation for the superintendency may seem high to some, it is relatively low compared to executives in other lines of work, such as hospital administrators, public and private college presidents and CEOs.

"To ensure that each child in New Jersey has access to a world-class education, it is critical that districts in the state be allowed to make decisions and remain competitive in the market for the best school leaders available," the report’s conclusion states. "The children of New Jersey deserve nothing less."

Come February, school boards will have significant monetary restraints on the candidates they can attract to fill their top spot.

The New Jersey School Boards Association has conducted 25 percent more superintendent searches this year than last because of increasing numbers of retirements. Association spokesman Frank Belluscio said it’s too early to know if that figure will fluctuate next year once the cap goes into effect.

Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-LedgerChatham School Board Member Jonathan Chatinover asks Gov. Christie why the school board can't make their own decision on how much to pay a superintendent at a Dec. 3 town hall meeting.

New Jersey is not the first state to limit superintendents’ salaries. In 1993, New York capped the salaries of superintendents who serve the state’s 37 Boards of Cooperative Educational Services at $166,762. They would be equivalent to New Jersey’s county superintendents. Minnesota also limited superintendent salaries in the mid-90s to 95 percent of its governor’s $120,000 salary. Along with New Jersey, these may be the only two states to try capping district schools-chiefs’ pay.

New York’s cap, which is still in place, had a "dramatic, negative effect" on the volume and quality of candidates for the state’s BOCES positions, said Bob Reidy, executive director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

"Some candidates have never been superintendents before," Reidy said. What had been a career capstone, he said, "is no longer a position that experienced superintendents aspire to."

School boards in Minnesota faced such difficulty hiring qualified administrators to run their public schools that the state legislature lifted the cap after seven years.

"It was no longer possible to retain people for that amount of money," said Charlie Kyte, executive director of Minnesota’s Association of School Administrators. "The national search firms swarmed all over us. They saw us as fertile recruiting ground."

Seton Hall University professor Michael Osnato knows the superintendent’s community well. He has conducted searches for New Jersey school boards and served as a superintendent himself. His spouse is the Northern Valley Public Schools’ current superintendent. He said the cap has created a high degree of anxiety.

"Bright, young supers have already started jumping to larger districts and considering jobs out of state," Osnato said.

Verona Superintendent Charles Samson presides over a district of about 2,200 students, but he’s vying for a chance to manage the Freehold public schools, a district of about 11,600 whose superintendent salary could exceed the $175,000 cap with approval from the Department of Education.

"I’m 39 – the younger side of the spectrum," Samson said. "Ultimately the cap will lead me to make difficult decisions that would have been made in a different manner without the cap."